Niall Doherty's Blog, page 208

What You’re Entitled To

In the Bhagavad-Gita (chapter 2, verse 47), Krisha says to Arjuna:

You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action.

An alternate translation:

You have a right to your labor, but not to the fruits of your labor.

The message is that you are entitled only to the doing of the work, and not any rewards that may come from it. You have to let go of the outcome, because ultimately the outcome isn’t up to you.

Who knows how your work will be received by the world? Maybe lots of people will love it. Maybe not. You can’t control how other people respond. Influence, maybe. But not control, not entirely.

The only thing you have complete control over is the doing of the work, the showing up every day, the writing of that book, the coding of that software, the designing of that webpage.

Whatever your work consists of, that’s all you can do and all you are entitled to.

Make Them Ask Twice

Here’s a good rule for making sure you don’t take on too many commitments. It’s especially handy for the people-pleasers among us (note to self!).

From Paul Graham:

A friend of mine rarely does anything the first time someone asks him. He knows that people sometimes ask for things that they turn out not to want. To avoid wasting his time, he waits till the third or fourth time he’s asked to do something; by then, whoever’s asking him may be fairly annoyed, but at least they probably really do want whatever they’re asking for.

I’ve taken to using this tip quite often. Whenever someone asks me for a favor I don’t immediately feel like doing but don’t want to say no to, I’ll tell them I don’t have time right now but request that they get back to me in a week or two.

Here’s the script I use. Feel free to steal.

Hey John,

Sorry, I’d love to help out but I’m a bit pushed for time right now. Can you get back to me after the 17th? My schedule should be a bit lighter then.

Thanks!

You’ll find that many people won’t get back to you at all, and you’ll be thankful that you didn’t indulge their first request.

Just be careful not to use this as a way to avoid saying no to offers that don’t interest you in the first place!

Blast Out Writer’s Block (Like A Rockstar)

Ash frontman Tim Wheeler shared a tip for overcoming writer’s block in an interview with Jarlath Regan.

Wheeler got the idea from a band called The Vaccines, who do what they call “the 20-song challenge” to kick off the creation of a new album. The challenge is to try write twenty new songs in a single day.

Wheeler aims a little lower, clearing his schedule and devoting ten consecutive hours to songwriting, with the goal of producing the bones of ten new songs in one session.

The pace is so hectic that there’s little time for perfectionism or self-doubt to creep in. As Wheeler says in the interview, you just write down “any old crap” and keep moving.

 

Being Creepy

There’s an old Woody Allen movie called The Diary.

Set in a small American town in the 1940’s, Allen plays the lead role of an impoverished young man (Norm) who falls for a local heiress (Annie). He goes all out to try win her heart, being very bold and reckless, seemingly oblivious to her lofty social stature and any kind of courting etiquette.

Early in the movie Annie is out on a date with another guy at a carnival. Norm acts like this other guy doesn’t exist, walks up to within two inches of Annie’s face, and asks her to dance.

Annie refuses.

A little while later, Norm sees Annie and the guy riding a ferris wheel and deems it as good a time as any to make another move. He sprints up to the ferriss wheel and plants his ass between the couple in the small seat, much to the annoyance of both Annie and the other guy. Once they’re high up on the wheel and the ride has stopped, Norm asks Annie to go out on a date with him, and she refuses. Norm then steps out of the seat and starts hanging from a steel bar. Dangling by one arm, he threatens to let go and kill himself unless Annie agrees to go on a date with him.

So Annie agrees, reluctantly.

At this point in the movie you’d be forgiven for thinking that Norm is a grade-A creep and that things won’t end well for Annie. You might well envision upcoming scenes of uncontrolled rage and screams for mercy.

But you’d be wrong.

Norm turns out to be a very nice guy. He and Annie fall madly in love and live happily ever after. In fact, the movie is largely considered to be a classic in the romance genre and millions of women the world over get the warm-fuzzies just thinking about it.

You’re probably wondering why you’ve never heard of this movie before.

Well, you have.

But it’s not an old Woody Allen movie. I just made that bit up and changed a few other details to throw you.

The real movie I’m referring to is called The Notebook. It was released in 2004 and stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. Their characters get together exactly as described above.

Somehow, despite the go-out-with-me-or-I’ll-kill-myself pickup line, most everybody considers Gosling’s character to be charming rather than creepy.

Permission To Be Creepy

Models by Mark Manson is the best book I’ve read on the topic of women and dating for men. There’s a great section in there all about creepiness. Mark describes his own experience out at a bar one night when he approached and was quickly rejected by one girl, then a little later approached and hit it off with another.

First girl: “You are the creepiest guy in here. Give it up.”
Second girl: “You are the hottest guy, you know you could have any girl in here, right?”

As Mark writes in the book:

There’s no such thing as a man who is good with women who isn’t also creepy some of the time.

The fact of life is that if you are a man who expresses his sexuality freely (and you should), some women, some of the time, are going to find you creepy. It’s simply unavoidable. No matter how cool, rich, good-looking and charming you are, at some point, somewhere a woman is going to be creeped out by you. Live with it.

So as a friend of mine says, “give yourself permission to be creepy.” There’s no other way. And look, it’s not the end of the world. There’s no Creepy Police who come and handcuff you and take you away for creeping on some girls every now and then.

What Mark is advocating here isn’t that men should go around being intentionally creepy. Of course not. If you’re a man and you’re trying to make moves on a girl and she seems creeped out, you stop making moves and you back off.

The point is that no matter how you express sexual interest as a man, some women are going to find you creepy, while others will find you charming.

If you look like Ryan Gosling, you’re going to come across charming more often than not, even if you act like a complete psycho. If you look like Woody Allen, well, you’re going to have to work that bit harder.

Either way, accept the fact that not all women are going to like you, no matter how well you present yourself.

Accept it and try anyway.

St. Patrick’s Day

The day after my thirtieth birthday I found myself standing at the edge of a dance floor in Dubai, having a moment of crisis.

I was keeping an eye on a girl some twenty-five feet away. She was dancing with friends and paying more attention than I was comfortable with to a smooth Spanish-looking dude alongside her.

Her name was Rena.

We’d met about an hour earlier and really hit it off. She’d laughed at my dumb jokes, introduced me to all her friends, and returned my flirty looks and comments.

Then Male Model Manuel had come along and knocked me off my game. Looks-wise, Rena was out of my league, but not his. They were the kind of match expected to emerge from a place like this, full of perfect smiles and roaming photographers.

I stood there and watched them dance, like a fat kid alone on the bleachers watching the football game he’d never been picked for.

And then I thought, “Fuck it, I’m not going to be the fat kid today, I’m going to make a move.”

I strode purposefully across the dance floor towards Rena. Only by luck did I reach her right as Triple-M had his back turned, guffawing for a minute with some of his male model buddies about male model things.

I didn’t say anything. Rena only realized I was there a split second before I picked her up and put her over my shoulder, caveman style. I couldn’t hear the music, just my pulse pounding in my ears as I carried her away to the side of the dance floor.

Before I put her down, I remember thinking, “Oh fuck. This could go horribly wrong.”

And then I put her down.

The Nudge Diet

My Saturdays are disgusting.

On a typical Saturday in Amsterdam, my diet will look something like this:

A large slice of apple pie with cream
A large latte macchiato with sugar
A toasted cheese and ham sandwich with extra mayonnaise
A cappuccino with sugar
A half-dozen mini Toblerones
A quarter pounder with bacon
A bottle of soda
A couple of slices of pizza
A serving of french fries
Another cappuccino
Another half-dozen mini Toblerones
A bigger bar of milk chocolate
And maybe some muesli with full-fat yogurt

I’ve been consuming such junk every Saturday for about eighteen months now, and I still have a six pack.

Granted, I exercise regularly, but rarely do I spend more than 2.5 hours a week intentionally raising my heart rate.

Mostly it’s my eating habits that I have to thank for my enduring washboard abs, and in this article I’m going to tell you exactly what those habits are.

I like to refer to my setup as “the nudge diet”, but it’s not really a diet. It’s more a framework anyone can use to nudge themselves towards healthier food choices most of the time. Whether you’re vegan, paleo, something more extreme or in between, this article should help you stick more to your ideal (assuming you know what your ideal is).

Let’s start with some general principles, and then I’ll tell you exactly how I put them into practice.

4 Principles For Better Eating

These are the four principles, discussed in detail further down.

Set Food Rules
Plan Your Indulgences
Use Trade-Offs
Slow Down

1. Set Food Rules

Some people really balk at this concept. I can hear them now: “Why have rules at all? Why not just eat whatever you feel like eating?”

Here are three reasons for setting some food rules for yourself:

a) If you eat what you want, when you want, most likely you’ll soon become fat and unhealthy. Our bodies are hardwired to want salt, sugar and fat. Food companies know this and so overload their products with salt, sugar and fat.

b) As Brain Wansink brilliantly illustrates in Mindless Eating, we are largely unconscious of what influences our eating. The size of your plate, the music in the supermarket, the words on the label… all of that and more has a huge impact on what you eat and how much (seriously, read the book; the examples are fascinating). Setting rules in advance helps us overcome these influences and eat more mindfully.

c) Quoting Wansink:

“My lab’s research has shown that the average person makes well over 200 decisions about food every day.”

Setting yourself a few food rules drastically reduces that number and thus delays decision fatigue. So instead of playing “will I or won’t I?” every time you pass the cookie jar, you have the decision made in advance (e.g. “I only eat cookies on weekends”) and can save yourself the torment, and the mental energy.

Here are a few examples of food rules you could set for yourself:

I will only eat chocolate on weekends.
I will only eat fast food once per week.
I will only have one cup of coffee per day.
I will only eat meat at one meal per day.
When ordering a drink, I will always ask for the smallest size.
I have to put everything I want to eat in front of me before I start eating. No going back for seconds.

Those are just examples. You can use some of them or create your own. Keep it simple to start by setting just 1-3 rules for yourself.

But be sure to sit down and decide on your rules in advance. Again, you want to avoid having to decide whether you should say yes or no every time you’re offered a cookie or a coffee.

2. Plan Your Indulgences

Most diets fail because they’re too strict. They try to cut out certain foods forever. Most people end up sticking to them for a while but then they cave and binge on the forbidden fruit.

Given this tendency, a smarter approach is to accept that you will probably fall off the wagon eventually, and to consciously plan for that fall.

I do this in the form of a treat day (others call it “cheat day” or “binge day”).

I try to eat super healthy six days a week, staying away from a bunch of foods I’ve identified as troublesome for me, and then on Saturdays I go nuts and eat whatever the hell I want.

Allowing myself off the leash once a week keeps me sane, and seems to work out well health-wise on the whole. It also makes my Saturdays a lot more fun

Momentos: August 16th – August 31st, 2015

16.

I’ve decided to phase out the freelance stuff. I have nice clients and make a decent living from the work they send me, but this isn’t my best contribution to the world, not by a long shot. I need to be spending more time producing content and building products. That’s how I’ll make the biggest impact, how I’ll reap the biggest rewards.

17.

There’s a government office in my hometown where you can go and they’re supposed to help you set up a business. Except when I got there they didn’t seem any way interested or knowledgeable. Just three people punching the clock and collecting checks. Yeah, that’s probably a bit harsh, but more and more lately I’m feeling bombarded by incompetence.

18.

We haven’t been in touch for a few weeks now, and she hasn’t been active on Facebook. I wonder how she’s getting on. Could just message her and say hey, but I’m a bit too stubborn for that. I think she’s being stubborn, too, not messaging me. I read back over some Momentos about her earlier today, brought back fond memories.

19.

Decided to stop being stubborn and messaged her last night. She replied saying she’d been wiped out the past few weeks, suffering from dengue fever and salmonella. All that “she’s being stubborn” shit was just in my head. I like to think I’m more mature-minded than most, but I still make lots of assumptions, project my own fears and insecurities onto others.

20.

Someone told me recently that they’d much prefer a heart attack to heart failure. And seeing what my grandmother’s going through, I have to agree. She’s mostly bed ridden now, confined to a hospital, confused and disoriented much of the time. I don’t want to go out like that. Put a needle in my arm and send me to sleep, let me die with a little dignity.

Walking along the River Barrow, near St. Mullin’s in Ireland.

21.

There’s something about a lone, tall tree in a field that appeals to me. Saw one today on a walk along the river at St. Mullin’s. I used to see another all the time on the way home from school. Back then I never knew what it was about that scene that resonated, but I think I get it now.

22.

Four in the morning in a taxi to the airport and I’m thinking of ancient Greeks. “Know thyself,” they used to say and inscribe. Is there any better life advice in so few words? I’m 33 years old and feel I’m knowing myself anew every month, becoming familiar with my strengths and weaknesses, how to accentuate and compensate.

23.

Back to the sanctuary after ten days away. The plants survived and I had a cleaner in. It was nice being home but I’m eager now to get stuck into a few solid months of work. I have books to write, courses to create, products to launch. Get back to me in January and we’ll see how the empire is coming along.

24.

Somehow my phone died overnight and I had no alarm this morning, ended up sleeping in for more than three hours. When I eventually awoke and realized what had happened, I shrugged it off and began my day as planned. There was no boss to call, no explanations required, no apologies needed. One of the joys of working for oneself.

25.

Hadn’t seen her in a month, dropped by today and met her son, was a little awkward. I’m not used to being around kids, not sure when to indulge them and when to draw the line. Anyway, was good to see her again, we had some time alone with the boy went to bed. I find it easy to be present in her company, not sure why. She relaxes me somehow.

Another workday in Amsterdam.

26.

Steven Pressfield writes about turning pro. That’s what I’m trying to do here in Amsterdam. The last few years I’ve only survived rather than thrived in business because I was distracted by travel and women and a different business plan every minute. But now I’m focused and committed. No travel, no sleepovers, stick with one plan for the long haul.

27.

And then along comes a test of the mighty variety: received an email this morning asking if I’d be available to discuss a freelance gig in the $7k range. A job like that would mean postponing all the personal projects I have planned, only worth doing if I’m super-excited about the opportunity. And I’m not, so I’ll pass. Focus, focus, focus.

28.

Launched a quick, 24-hour sale of the guide yesterday, giving folks one more chance to buy before taking it offline to transform and expand it into two products which should be ready by January. Just shut the sale down a few minutes ago, ended up with 13 sales amounting to $875. Pretty good start to the weekend methinks.

29.

Another thing that pulls at my focus is libido. Feeling it strong the past couple of weeks. And I know I can go get laid regularly if I put the time and effort into it, but that’s time and effort taken away from working on the goal I value more. So I lie on the couch on a Saturday night watching comedy and trying not to watch porn and feeling frustrated.

30.

Struggling with a feeling of hopelessness today. Maybe I’m just tired. But I read patronizing comments and about rape punishments and I think about all the work I want to do and I question my ability to do it and meanwhile I feel lonely and sad and then I get angry at myself for feeling this way because look at where I live and all I have.

31.

Reading Pressfield again. This helps: “Sometimes Resistance takes the form of sex, or an obsessive preoccupation with sex. Why sex? Because sex provides immediate and powerful gratification. When someone sleeps with us, we feel validated and approved of, even loved. Resistance gets a big kick out of that. It knows it has distracted us with a cheap, easy fix and kept us from doing our work.”

Visiting a floating cat sanctuary in Amsterdam,
with filmmaker Sam and fellow bloggers Savannah and Jess.

In the comments below, let me know which of the above Momentos is your favorite. Which can you relate to?

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Momentos: August 1st – August 15th, 2015

1.

Today the old streets are colored by ten thousand rainbows, some flags even adorning church towers. My heart smiles to see gay couples walking hand in hand without a care in the world. On a bridge on Utrechtsestraat, there’s a canal parade passing under. I peer over the crowd in time to see a giant inflatable penis springing back to full erection.

2.

For the most part, we know what’s good for us. We know how to beat the blues. We know how to be happy, healthy, successful. The knowing isn’t hard. It’s the doing that gets us. Like me this morning. I knew I needed to shower, to write, to organize. I knew I’d feel better after doing those things. And I did them, but the resistance was colossal.

3.

Actually, that resistance was just exhaustion. I did the bare minimum yesterday morning then spent the afternoon and evening on the couch watching movies. I’ve been more productive today, despite taking two naps. Not going to beat myself up about it though, knowing that this isn’t laziness; this is the batteries in need of a recharge.

4.

Trying to figure out where to register my business. I’ve been winging it for the past few years on the road, but now that I’m staying in one place for a while I’m obliged and eager to get everything set up legit. I could register the biz here in the Netherlands, but all the info has my head spinning. Doing it in Ireland seems much easier, and cheaper.

5.

I lay awake in bed for almost three hours last night, mind running wild with business plans and ideas. I’m pretty confident I can build an online empire, serving people well and making good money in the process. The only thing between me and that vision is time and work. I just need to sit down every day for the next two years and chip away.

Gay pride in Amsterdam :-)

6.

We’re out in the evening air now, enjoying drinks and the chat. I cycled down here earlier, feeling like a love-struck teen, this city my crush, sights of streets and buildings triggering thoughts of times past, inhabitants and happenings I’ve read about. “People are trapped in history,” wrote James Baldwin, “and history is trapped in them.”

7.

Whenever I encounter shitty service or a shitty product out there in the world, it’s frustrating, sure, but it’s also a relief of sorts. Because it reminds me that I’ll always be able to make good money. All I have to do is care more and try harder than most other employees and entrepreneurs, and most of them don’t seem to care very much or try very hard.

8.

Happiness is riding a bicycle in Amsterdam. I cycled some seventeen kilometers today, beaming all the while. My bike rides like a quiet breeze over smooth trails, not alongside roads and highways but trails off on their own, winding gently through sleepy suburban estates, past fields with fine horses, over canals with ducks and kids swimming.

9.

I had a date tonight. She was nice and we had a great chat, but that’s as far as it’s going to go. We’re looking for different things, her long-term, me casual. Thing is, that date cost me four hours and $40 and nothing will come of it. Has me thinking I should jump back on AFF. For $30/month I’d meet lots of women with similar things in mind.

10.

Going through the archives, lining up some articles for reposting on Facebook (you might want to like my page over there if you haven’t already). Sometimes I forget how much I’ve written. More than 500 articles on all kinds of topics. Admittedly, some of those articles suck, but I’m quite proud of the majority, mostly evergreen.

#workday

11.

I’m still doing the intermittent fasting. Most Monday’s I’ll have breakfast and then not eat again until the next morning. There is some debate about whether or not IF really is good for your health, but I can’t imagine it does any harm. I like the discipline of it and the extra time it affords me. Plus, I end up appreciating breakfast on a Tuesday a lot more than most.

12.

Leaving town tomorrow for ten days, so I had to take some time to bike around this afternoon. I don’t live far from the Rijksmuseum, can actually see it from the corner. I flowed over on two wheels and through the center of the building, around Museumplein and back across a couple canals. It’s not lost on me, the privilege of living in this town.

13.

Flight leaves in an hour and twenty minutes, I’m more than ten miles from the airport, the trains aren’t running, rush hour is upon us, and there’s nare a taxi in sight. I don’t see this as a series of problems so much as a series of questions: can I keep cool under pressure? how resourceful can I be? how assertive? And if I don’t quite make it, how accepting?

14.

Charlotte, Emily and Anne were three sisters born within four years of each other some two hundred years ago. They each produced what are considered masterworks of English literature. I like to imagine the conversations they must have had, stimulating each other’s genius, wondering if those talks were anything like that talk we had today.

15.

I’m luckier than most, been half my life since someone close to me died. That streak will end soon, and doubtful I’ll ever come close to it again. Thinking about this as we walk through the hospital, past whispered conversations and worry-worn faces. They said yesterday she had dementia, and I wonder if she’ll remember me at all.

Flying back to Ireland.

In the comments below, let me know which of the above Momentos is your favorite. Which can you relate to?

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$7,622 In 3.5 Days: Lessons Learned From My Latest Product Launch

I’ve received hundreds of requests to write about this, so here goes.

On July 21st I released a guide called Travel The World + Work Online. The guide is no longer for sale but you can still check out the info page here.

In the 3.5 days the guide was available, I sold 108 copies for a total of $7,622.

The sales broke down like this:

Travel The World + Work Online (The Guides + Interviews)

57 sales
$2,932


Travel The World + Work Online (The Guides + Interviews + Audio + Video)

48 sales
$3,293


Travel The World + Work Online (The Complete Package)

3 sales
$1,397

I had some expenses related to the creation and release of the guide that should be taken into account:

$388 – Gumroad fees (for payment processing and order fulfillment)
$115 – Virtual assistant (for help hosting a webinar)
$101 – Affiliate commissions
$40 – Facebook ads
$20 – Zapier basic plan (to connect mailing list to webinar software)
$20 – SumoMe Scroll Box Pro (for lead capture)

Subtract those expenses and I’m left with $6,938 from sales of the guide.

Not bad.

But we should take a few other things into consideration, too:

I’m not counting the hundreds of dollars I invested in other digital guides and online courses the past few months as research for creating my own.
I’m not counting expenses such as web hosting (Dreamhost) and email marketing (Aweber) since I would be paying for those regardless.
Perhaps most significantly, I’m not counting the opportunity cost of creating and marketing such a guide. As a conservative estimate, I would say I spent 300 hours creating and marketing the guide over a period of ten months. If I had instead spent even half of those hours doing my usual freelance web design gigs at a rate of $80/hour, I’d have several thousand additional dollars in my pocket right now.

So yes, July 2015 was my most profitable month in business to date, and yes, I did pull in more than $5,000 within the first 24 hours of releasing the guide, which was all kinds of awesome and had me giggling like a schoolgirl… but let’s not get carried away here.

Given the amount of time and energy invested, I didn’t exactly make a killing.

That said, I did create an asset that I can use to generate additional income in future — I plan to release the guide again at a later date — so the ultimate ROI is still to be determined.

What Worked?

Here are a few things that seemed to work well and helped generate sales of the guide.

1. Creating a quality product

It all starts with creating something that provides great value and people are happy to pay for, and I think I did a solid job of that with the guide. I was very proud of the finished product and the feedback has been excellent so far. Three weeks deep and nobody has requested a refund, either.

Of course, it helps that I’ve been walking my talk for the past five years, having visited and lived in dozens of different countries while working online, and documenting the highs and lows of that lifestyle all the while.

2. Early bird discount

I offered a 15% discount on the guide for the first 24 hours. As a result, I made two-thirds of the total sales in that first 24-hour period.

Generally, it seems to be a good idea to give people a deadline of some sort. We all like to procrastinate and say to ourselves, “I’ll do it later,” so when selling it helps to give people an extra incentive to take action right there and then.

3. Tiered pricing

This means offering different versions of the product. I offered three:

The Guides + Interviews ($59)
The Guides + Interviews + Audio + Video ($79)
The Guides + Interviews + Audio + Video + Personal Coaching ($599)

I wasn’t going to do tiered pricing due to the extra work required to create the different offerings, but then I read this article by Nathan Barry and realized I’d be leaving a lot of money on the table if I didn’t.

If I had just offered the $59 version of the guide to everyone (which was my initial plan), I would have missed out on more than $2,000 in revenue from the same amount of sales.

4. Audio and video version of the guide

The middle tier was essentially the guide plus audio and video walk-throughs. That is, audio and video recordings of me reading all the text aloud and throwing in a few additional tips and anecdotes as I saw fit.

I wasn’t sure that this was enough of an addition to warrant an extra $20 in price, but given how many people opted for that package, plus the positive feedback I’ve received about the audio and video content, I’m really glad I did this.

Seems a lot of people love being able to consume the content in different ways. Sometimes they’re content to sit and read a few pages, but other times they like to kick back and watch a video, or listen to an MP3 while away from their computer.

What could I have done better?
1. Poor sales funnel

I recognized many of the people who bought the guide had been following me online for  quite a while. And many who bought told me it was mainly because they know and trust me.

Given that, combined with the fact that I’m not naturally a great salesman, going forward I realize the need to better nurture leads before asking for a sale. I’ll do that by setting up a special email series for newcomers that drips out valuable content related to traveling the world and working online. That should help them get to know and trust me, and hopefully get a few conversations started.

2. Pitching (repeatedly) to my entire list instead of starting a new list

I have more than 2,000 people on my primary mailing list. Given that I write about a wide variety of topics, not all of those people were interested in traveling the world and working online.

But I pitched to the entire list anyway. Multiple times.

That was a bad idea, resulting in dozens of unsubscribes and a handful of complaints.

A better idea would have been to set up a separate email list and invite people to sign up for that one if they wanted to know more about the guide. I’ve actually gone ahead and created just such a list now. If you want to be notified when the next version of the guide is available, sign up here.

3. Facebook ads

I’m not sure how the Facebook ads worked out. I never quite figured out the tracking there so no idea if the $40 I invested generated a good ROI.

I do like the concept of Facebook custom audiences though, which is what I used. That allowed me to promote the guide only to Facebookers who had visited my site before and were therefore much more likely to be interested in what I had to offer.

I will use FB ads again, just have to make sure I get the tracking right next time.

4. Webinar

On Sean Ogle’s recommendation, I decided to do a webinar to promote the guide, staying up until 5am here in Amsterdam so more Americans could tune in (most of my audience is in the USA).

I was aiming for 100 attendees on the webinar and ended up with 30. Those 30 attendees were great though, staying with me for two hours and asking lots of questions.

Unfortunately I only made 4 sales of the guide during the webinar. Sending out the recording later on seemed to push several more, but given the time and expense of the whole thing I’m not convinced it was worth it.

5. Affiliates

Only two of the 108 sales came through affiliates, despite reaching out to a dozen or so friends with their own online audiences and offering a 75% commission.

I’m not sure I’ll go to the trouble of trying to recruit affiliates for the next release of the guide. I think my time would be better spent on creating new content and building out and optimizing my sales funnel.

6. Showing the highest-priced package first

If you take a look at the info page for the guide right now, you’ll see as you scroll down that I first display the different versions in this order:

The Guides + Interviews ($59)
The Guides + Interviews + Audio + Video ($79)
The Guides + Interviews + Audio + Video + Personal Coaching ($599)

Initially I had them displayed in reverse order, so the $599 version showed up first (or $499 during the first 24 hours).

This was a mistake, and one my friend Karol warned me about before launch. I ignored his advice (sorry, Karol!) because I was sold on the concept of price anchoring (explained here). I still believe in that concept, but my error was not showing all the prices side-by-side at first, so people could see the three options at a single glance.

Showing just the highest price on its own initially resulted in this kind of thinking:

When I opened your first email that made your guide available…I quickly clicked on it…scrolled to bottom…and saw a “500.00” and thought “well that’s not for me at this time”….

That was feedback I received from one reader, and I suspect she wasn’t alone in her reaction.

I later accepted my mistake and switched the packages around so the lowest price appeared first, but I think the damage was mostly done by then. For price anchoring to work, I should have had a quick price comparison table up top of the info page.

7. Reddit AMA

AMA stands for Ask Me Anything, and it’s a good way to get attention on Reddit if you’ve got an interesting story to tell. Back in April of 2014 I did my first AMA:

I’ve been traveling around the world without flying for 2.5 years, just crossed the Pacific Ocean on a cargo ship. AMA!

I usually get ~1,000 visitors a day on my website, but that AMA last year hit the front page of Reddit and sent more than 15,000 visitors my way, eventually crashing my humble online abode.

I figured I could do the same again this year, or perhaps even top it, since I’d now completed my trip around the world and thus had an even better story to tell. So I adjusted my site to handle more traffic and posted another AMA:

 I spent 44 months circumnavigating the globe without flying, visited 37 countries and crossed the Pacific on a cargo ship. AMA!

Unfortunately, this one didn’t go so well. The AMA never gained traction and resulted in less than 200 visitors to my website.

Why did the second AMA do so poorly?

Methinks I messed up by posting it in the general AMA section of Reddit rather than in the /travel subreddit. First time around I posted it in the general AMA section but the mods moved it for me, no problem. I figured the same would happen this time but the mods said they couldn’t move it and instructed me to start the AMA over again in the correct location. I tried doing that but couldn’t figure it out (it being 3am and me being exhausted probably didn’t help), and soon gave up in frustration.

8. Not giving myself much time to get everything ready

I was initially aiming to release the guide at the end of June, but kept finding more things to add and adjustments to make and eventually settled on the release date of July 21st. Even with that extra bit of breathing room to get everything ready, I was still putting in 60+ hours/week in front of the computer leading up to the launch.

I’m glad I gave myself a deadline and I’m happy with the version of the guide I released, but I don’t want a repeat of that grueling work schedule next time around. It’s not very good for my health.

What’s next?

I was going to relaunch the guide in September/October and leave it up for sale at that point, but now I’m thinking different.

First of all, I’m thinking of transforming the guide into an online course.

Why?

Over the weekend I surveyed the buyers and collected anonymous feedback. And that feedback has me convinced that the existing format of the guide isn’t ideal, because it dumps a ton of information on them all at once. The advantage of this is that people can dip in and out of the guide as they wish and just focus on the content they’re interested in, but the downside is that it can be very overwhelming.

I’m going to investigate some existing online courses in the coming weeks and see if that format works better.

Secondly, I’ve decided against leaving the guide up for sale all the time, for a few reasons:

Constantly having it for sale means constantly attending to sales and marketing, which distracts me from attending to the buyers and helping them out however I can.
I like to create a community, and this is easier to do with a group of people who buy the guide at about the same time. The first group of buyers are all in a secret Facebook group now and they will learn and grow together. If a new buyer was to join them in a week or two they’d feel like they’re behind the curve and out of place.
For me personally, it’s more financially viable to relaunch the guide every few months rather than having it up for sale all the time. I can build buzz and make a big sales and marketing push every once in a while rather than trying to maintain it constantly. This should lead to more sales, which means I can afford to spend more time and money making the guide even better.

More feedback

I mentioned that I surveyed the buyers of the guide over the weekend, receiving 26 complete and 8 partial responses out of a possible 108. All feedback was anonymous. Here are the results of the multiple choice questions asked in the survey:

If you’d like to be notified when the guide is re-released…

…please sign up below and I’ll put you on a special list. I’ll only send you information about the guide and some free stuff related to it.

My name is →



My email is →




No spam, ever. Unsubscribe with a click.






Last thing…

If you found this article helpful, please hit one of those share buttons to the left. That would help me out a lot. Thanks!

Momentos: July 16th – July 31st, 2015

16.

A young man and woman call to my door, say they’re collecting money for a charity to help poor people in the Netherlands. They seem nice and genuine and everything, but I tell them straight that I don’t give away money without careful consideration. “There’s too much pressure, face-to-face,” I tell them. “What’s your website? I’ll check it later and decide then.”

17.

Working on the audio and video for the guide now, spent about six hours at it today, and will need a bigger push tomorrow to polish it off. Then it’s various loose ends that need tying up before the launch on Tuesday. I’m feeling good though overall. People are emailing me saying they’re excited to buy this thing, and I’ll be proud to sell it to them.

18.

Skipping cheat day. I allow myself apple pie and a couple coffees, but that’s as far as it goes. I’m trying to keep the diet clean to compensate for lack of sleep the past few weeks, feel myself tip-toeing that exhaustion line and a junk food feast would be enough to send me stumbling. These are lessons learned the hard way through three years of Mardi Gras.

19.

RescueTime shows that I’ve logged 83.5 hours on the laptop this past week at 76% productivity. The week before was 64 hours. It’s a wonder I’m not more exhausted right now. I guess it helps that I’ve cut out all distractions; I’ve had nothing to do but work, eat, and make quick trips to the park and grocery store. Coming together nicely. 36 hours to launch.

20.

Alright, I’m just about done. Everything’s ready for tomorrow. I still don’t know how successful this launch will be, but I couldn’t have worked any harder these past few weeks so I’ll just have to be at peace with whatever happens. Now let me kick back, have some cereal, and watch a half hour of Hank Moody shenanigans before bed.

The 84-hour workweek :-/

21.

Pre-launch doubts creeping in. Recording them here before things kick off in a couple of hours. What if I fall well short of my goal to make 100 sales this week? I free-write and remind myself that the plan here in Amsterdam is to build my business and finances, and that it will take years, not months, to get them looking how I want. This is just the first step.

22.

I make myself stay offline right out of bed, knowing that if I check my email real quick I’ll get sucked into the vortex. So I let the laptop sleep and head to the park for some exercise, come back and meditate for twenty minutes. Then, finally, I boot up the machine and check the numbers. Well holy fuck: I’ve pulled in $5,000 in 24 hours.

23.

5:38am as I’m writing this, just finished up a free webinar. Had about thirty attendees and only sold four copies of the guide from it so far, but happy nonetheless. Provided good value, learned a lot, and I still have the recording to send out tomorrow, so that might drive a few more sales. I’m about a dozen away from hitting the century target.

24.

I’ve annoyed some people with the sales push this week, had a lot more unsubscribes than usual, and comments outright telling me I was going way overboard. Also this week I’ve had many people tell me they love the guide and would have happily paid more for it, and others saying they admire my marketing efforts. Funny old world.

25.

Most of the interior is painted green. There’s a mural of Bob Marley, a swing hanging from the ceiling, and a cat that must be stoned out of its mind all the damn time. I’m the only guy in here not smoking, just wanted to keep my friend company. I’ve never taken a puff of a joint, never consumed an illegal drug, but not for the reasons you might think.

Exhausted after long days of recording audio and video.

26.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but…” Those are her first words to me, followed by the message that she and her friends would rather not make my acquaintance. Fast forward no more than five minutes and a cute Latvian girl is leaning in to say, “I wish more guys could be like you.” Funny old world.

27.

There’s something different in her eyes, in the way she looks at me. There’s a flicker of doubt in there, or fear, the blue not as bright as before. Crosses my mind that it may just be my imagination. Why risk ruining a perfectly nice evening by saying something? So, of course, I go ahead and say something.

28.

I did an interview with the biggest radio station in Ireland today. They booked me into a studio here in Amsterdam, thought it was going to be recorded but went out live. Not a bad interview, but I felt I could have done a lot better. Two key takeaways: 1) Never ask the host, “How are you?”; 2) Start with a story rather than wait for a question.

29.

Suffering from a bit of a post-launch hangover. Mostly it’s the lack of sleep catching up with me. Took a massive effort today to get just three hours of client work done. Chatted with a biz-savvy friend on Skype though this afternoon and he got me excited again about the next phase of the guide, and some other projects I have in mind.

30.

Next time you’re tempted to get into an argument with someone on Facebook over some emotionally charged topic, stop and ask yourself how likely it is that they will eventually feel compelled to respond with one of the following:

Good point. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
Ah, okay. I see where you’re coming from now.
It seems I was mistaken. My apologies.

Now ask yourself if you’ve ever had the maturity to respond as such.

31.

It’s been my best ever month in business. I’d never cracked the $7k mark before, and here I’ve gone and done it within a couple of months of settling down in one place. Next month will be tougher though. I’ve got a lot of work to do before I’m pulling in $7k a month consistently. But I know I’ll get there. It’s simply inevitable.

“Who let that gobshite on the radio?”

In the comments below, let me know which of the above Momentos is your favorite. Which can you relate to?

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Momentos: July 1st – July 15th, 2015

1.

I haven’t been sleeping a lot this week, mind too excited with the upcoming launch of this guide teaching people how to work online and travel the world. I lie awake at night with thoughts of how to make it better, come conscious an hour before dawn with an idea of something else to add. It will be the best thing I’ve ever brought into existence.

2.

I’m very aware of the voice of self-sabotage within, telling me I don’t need to spend all these hours on graphics or formatting or a thousand other little things. But what that voice is really saying is that if I don’t give it my best shot, then I’m off the hook should it fall flat; I can take solace in knowing that I didn’t really try, didn’t really care. But I do, and so I will.

3.

It’s not Van Gogh’s art that hits me so much as his story. At the museum I spend more time reading about his life and work than looking at his paintings. He only began at age 27 and died ten years later. He got so good so fast because he was very systematic and disciplined in his work, always pushing to experiment and learn from others.

4.

Clothing budget reset with the calendar flipped, I visit five different stores and try on seven different shirts before buying just the one. My rule is that I have to love the clothes I buy; liking isn’t good enough. So I look at many and try on a lot, and make myself walk away if it’s not perfect.

5.

We hit the beach as everyone else is leaving. Dark clouds are moving in and the wind is picking up. Ten minutes later we’re cold specks in a dull sea, but happy just the same, feeling again like we’re part of this planet. Later we sit behind clear glass drinking warm tea talking about biting nails and watching porn and sometimes saying no words at all.

Hanging with Vinny Van G. I posted a few notes from my visit to the Van Gogh Museum over on Facebook.

6.

Working full-time now on the guide and prepping for the launch. A lot hinges on how this thing fares. I’ve defined success as selling at least 100 copies the first week, affiliate sales not included. That would make it a $5k launch or thereabouts. If I hit that mark I’ll invest a lot more time and energy into it. Otherwise I’ll flip my focus back to freelance.

7.

She wants more than I’m willing to give. We talked about this before, but seems we need to talk about it again. This is good for me though. I’ve always struggled with setting and enforcing boundaries, but I’ve been stronger about it since moving here, sticking to my priorities, not willing to budge. I’m not such a nice guy anymore, but probably a better man.

8.

A friend asked me today what’s the biggest threat to a successful launch of my guide on the 21st. I think it’s exhaustion. I’m averaging 6.4 hours of sleep so far this month, about an hour less than usual. You only get away with that for so long before a crash comes. I’m making good time for sleep, but still lying awake at night with the wheels turning.

9.

Trying to fit in some client work between everything I’m doing for this guide. Typical that old clients would come out of the woodwork around this time, when I’ve already got my hands full. I’ve turned down some work offers, trying to push others to next month. I could have gotten a chunk done this evening but really needed the downtime.

10.

I want a business like my body. I look in the mirror and like what I see. Room for improvement, certainly, but overall it looks good and performs well. And how did I get this body? By exercising regularly and eating pretty healthy, day after day and week after week for several years now. I’ve been disciplined, and persistent. I’ll get there with the business, too.

When in Amsterdam…

11.

Neither of us have driven a boat before, but we’re in one now, navigating the back canals of Amsterdam, struggling to keep the bow straight and avoid floating tourist buses. I read this morning that these waterways were dug by hand in the 17th century, the houses alongside built on pylons driven into the earth by manual labor. The more I learn about this city, the more I love it.

12.

It’s 1:39am on a Monday morning, been working away here for several hours. I’ve shifted to American time, looking to be well in sync with most of my readers for the launch next week. I usually take Sundays off but wanted to get a first draft of the guide out to a few people today. It’s uploading now. Yoghurt to celebrate.

13.

Wondering now if I’ve seriously under-priced this thing. Showed a friend the launch page today and her first comment was that the price was too low, and one reader I gave a sneak peek to has already claimed one of the coaching packages, saying it’s “amazing value!” No way to know where the sweet spot is. Only time will tell.

14.

Running through De Pijp on my way to the park, and I’m a well-oiled machine. My body takes firm steps, turns tight corners, feels no pain. My mind is sharp, aware of surroundings, looking forward to another day of fulfilling work. Perhaps it’s this overconfidence, this illusion of invincibility, that leads to me hobbling home a half hour later.

15.

Running on fumes now, chugging green smoothies to try offset the lack of sleep. The guide launches in six days and there’s a lot left to do, feel like I’m juggling knives. I’ve barely left the apartment since Saturday. Not sure I’ve ever worked this hard on something, or cared this much. It’s a beautiful time in my life, in an exhausting kind of way.

Cheat day at the office

In the comments below, let me know which of the above Momentos is your favorite. Which can you relate to?

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